


You Can Always Find Me in the Drift

by ConstantWriter85



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Pacific Rim (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alpine the Cat, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Awesome Pepper Potts, Battle Couple, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes and the 21st Century, Bucky and Alpine, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt/Comfort, Jaegers (Pacific Rim), Kaiju (Pacific Rim), Medical Trauma, Original Character(s), POV Bucky Barnes, POV Original Character, Pepper Potts Is a Good Bro, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Avengers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Seizures, Smut, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro, Strong Female Characters, Suicidal Thoughts, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, The Drift (Pacific Rim), Violence, Worried Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:13:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23106025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstantWriter85/pseuds/ConstantWriter85
Summary: When Loki opened the portal atop Stark Tower, he inadvertently opened a second portal deep in the pacific, unleashing the vicious kaiju monsters. In desperation, the world looks to the Avengers for help containing the Breach, but the kaiju are too much for earth’s mightiest heroes.From the ashes of the first attack emerge two telepathic twins, Matthew and Marlowe Mackenzie–pilots of a gigantic robot they call a Jaeger, built in secret to combat the kaiju. As they’re accepted into the Avenger’s family, Bucky finds himself falling for Marlowe. She helps him come to terms with the man he’s become, but as the Avengers wage their war against the kaiju, Bucky wonders if the cost is too high.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Original Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes & Original Female Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Comments: 5
Kudos: 34





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a reboot of a series I started a year ago. It’s the first Bucky series I wrote, but my writing has come so far I feel it needed some serious editing before I finished it. This is a Pacific Rim / Avengers AU, but you don’t need to have seen Pacific Rim to enjoy this.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warning: None
> 
> Warnings: 18+, Language, Angst, Fluff, Smut, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Blood/Injury, PTSD, Minor Character Death

_We always thought alien life would come from the stars…and we were right. The day a demigod of mischief from another dimension came to earth seeking the Tesseract, we knew the door had been opened for others. We just didn’t realize those others would come from beneath the sea._

_A fissure between two tectonic plates in the Pacific Ocean. A portal between dimensions, accidentally opened when the Asgardian Loki used the Tesseract and created a wormhole. A portal we would come to know simply as The Breach._

_The first monster to come through The Breach was enormous—over two hundred feet tall with vicious claws and teeth, like something out of a horror movie. We called it Kaiju, and it destroyed most of the southern coast of Alaska and Anchorage before it was finally killed by the military._

_The world mourned, and the world moved on. Then six months later, another kaiju emerged and destroyed San Francisco._

_We realized they weren’t going to stop._

_In desperation, the world looked to The Avengers for help as more kaiju came through The Breach. But even now, one year after the initial Breach, they were still struggling. The Kaiju were simply too big, even for earth’s mightiest heroes._

_Little did they know that the answer would rise from the ashes of the first Kaiju attack._

_To fight monsters, we created monsters._

***

**Anchorage, Alaska – 2012**

“Marlowe!”

Two cold hands wormed their way under the covers, shaking her.

“…get off me…” she mumbled as she tried to burrow further under the covers.

But Matthew’s enthusiasm would not be daunted. He unceremoniously ripped the covers off his sister and kicked the bunk’s metal frame.

“I hate you,” she growled.

“C’mon lazybones, we’ve got movement in the Breach. Landfall’s in three hours.”

Marlowe snapped awake in an instant.

Matthew smiled. “It’s a category II Kaiju—ready to pop _Nova’s_ cherry, little sis?”

“Little by fifteen minutes, you goof,” she said as she pulled on her coveralls. “Stop standing there grinning at me like an idiot and toss me my boots.”

He chucked them at her head and she deftly caught them, tugged them on and following him out the door to her quarters without even bothering to lace them.

Down the corridor and out along the catwalk, skirting welders and dodging overhead cranes. The Shatterdome was in full swing despite the early hour, and the workers clapped the twins on the back and wished them luck as they passed by.

A lot was riding on today.

 _Everything_ was riding on today.

They were halfway to the Control Room when Tendo Choi’s voice was heard over the 1MC.

_“Nova Centurion, report to Bay One. Kaiju sighted through the Breach. Code Name: Clawhook. Category Two. ETA to landfall three hours.”_

A loud cheer went up throughout the Shatterdome as the twins climbed the ladder to the Control Room. Matthew grinned and waved, and Marlowe just shook her head. The twins were well known in the facility—after all, their father had helped build the hulking robot that his children were about to pilot.

Marlowe looked over in the corner where _Nova Centurion_ stood a silent sentinel. Weighing in at over two thousand tons, the two hundred and fifty foot robot had been designed, built, and tested right here in the facility they built from the ashes of the Anchorage Naval Shipyard.

They called it the Shatterdome. It started as a refugee camp of sorts, built from the cobbled-together remains of several drydocks. Now it was home to over two thousand people.

When the first kaiju attack hit their hometown of Anchorage, the twins were just finishing up their doctoral degrees; Marlowe in advanced robotics at M.I.T. and Matthew in neuroscience at Johns Hopkins. Their father called to tell them the horrifying news—their home was destroyed, and their mother had been killed in the attack.

But Michael Mackenzie was not a man to be hobbled by grief. He had a plan.

A retired reactor engineer with the Navy, Michael was now the chief foreman at the Anchorage Naval Shipyard, the largest ship graveyard in the US. Or, at least, he had been until the kaiju attack leveled the town. Now condemned, the ships remained in their watery graves, waiting to be put to use. Grimly, he told his children his plan as he pointed to the news station where The Avengers were fighting yet another kaiju.

_“That’s what we need,” he said, pointing to Iron Man. “Something like that…only bigger.”_

Between the three of them, they were able to design and build a crude robot out of spare ship parts with the help of the shipyard workers who had stayed behind. They called it the Jaeger Project—the hunter of the kaiju. 

As a mechanical engineer, Marlowe took charge of the design and robotic interfacing, and their father was able to cobble together a single-stage reactor to power the robot. The first machine, known as the Mark-I, was cumbersome and slow due to the time delay between the pilot’s input signals and the hydraulics.

The twins called upon some of their old college friends to help solve the problem. Cryptozoologist Dr. Newton Geiszler and mathematician Dr. Hermann Gottlieb were brought on board, and together with Matthew they came up with a brilliant solution—a neurological interfacing between the pilot and the machine using the PONS system.

The PONS system utilized a close-fitting cranial helmet and spinal clamp to directly interface the pilot’s neurological signals with the machine. A drivesuit with synaptic processors further enhanced the response, allowing the pilot to physically feel interaction with the outside world, thus speeding up reaction time.

The shared neural link between pilot and machine was the key to controlling the gigantic Jaegers, but unfortunately, not all the kinks had been worked out yet.

They were now passing a large plaque that listed the names of the men and women who had given their lives building the Jaeger. Both twins ran their fingers over their father’s name as they walked by.

Michael had insisted on taking the first test himself in the Mark-II Jaeger. The neural load of solo-piloting a machine that size proved too much for a normal human, and it triggered a seizure that killed him.

Matthew had been inconsolable, and he blamed himself for their father’s death. Stubbornly, Marlowe had reminded him that their father hadn’t given up after their mother’s death, and they shouldn’t either.

She convinced him to try tandem piloting the Jaeger, calling upon a strange bond the twins had shared since infancy.

They were telepathic.

A new Jaeger was built—the Mark-III, while Matthew and Marlowe spent countless hours practicing, strengthening their skill. Using their backgrounds in neuroscience and robotics, they developed a neural pathway to enhance their telepathy.

The called it the Drift.

Together in the tandem-drift, they controlled the Jaeger as one. Their telepathic abilities enhanced the neural handshake and balanced the load equally between two pilots acting as one.

Up until today, it had all been tests and trial runs in the Jaeger, the one they had named _Nova Centurion_. Months of planning, the blood, sweat, and tears of thousands of people coming together to build the machine that would hopefully defend earth from the vicious kaiju.

Today would be their first drop, their first fight with a kaiju.

Today would be the day they revealed themselves to the world, for better or for worse.

“You guys ready for this?” Tendo asked as he settled in behind the controls.

The twins were fully outfitted now, the contrasting black and white of their drivesuits illuminated by the caged overhead lighting. They’d suited up dozens of times, but this time, it was for real.

This time, they might not be coming back.

“You better believe it,” Matthew grinned as he stepped into the pilot control rig on the right side. “What do we know?”

Tendo pulled up the datasheet. “It’s a large Cat-II, the largest one yet…over four thousand metric tons of displacement. I named it Clawhook—see these huge claws here? Looks like a velociraptor.”

“How original,” Marlowe said dryly as she locked herself into the left-hand rig.

“I do what I can,” he shrugged. “Uh, US Navy and Coast Guard are on scene, this one’s headed for sector seven—Seattle. You’ve got Air Force support from the coast, and the Avengers ETA is one hour.”

“What’re the chances of them blowing us out of the sky?” Marlowe asked.

The Jaeger project had been operated in secret up until now, and this was the first time not only the kaiju, but the world would be introduced to _Nova Centurion_. Hopefully after they already had one kaiju kill under their belts.

“Uh…it’s a strong possibility, but the ex-Navy flyboys serving as your taxi service ensure us they still know the callsigns.”

“Great. I feel so much better now.”

_You good, Mar?_

Her brother’s voice echoed in her head.

_All locked and ready to rock. This one’s for Dad._

Matthew smiled at her as he called all clear to Tendo. The wiry controller gave them a little salute as he punched the controls and watched his friends drop away as the Conn Pod slid onto the Jaeger’s shoulders.

Metal clanged and whirred as the Pod was clamped in place. A heads up display flickered to life across the large viewport in front of them, and Tendo called over the comms.

“ _Nova Centurion,_ prepare for neural handshake. Starting in four…three…two…”

At “one,” Matthew turned his head and shot Marlowe a wink.

Then they fell into the Drift, seesawing back and forth through time as their minds overlapped.

_Hiking with their Dad in Denali, pine, everything smelled like pine._

_Hey Mattie, watch this!_

_Blowing out the candles on their fifth birthday cake, their dog barking as he ran through the yard._

_Matthew kissing his first girl beneath the bleachers at school._

_Marlowe hugging Dad and saying she wished he didn’t have to go._

_Mom standing in the doorway as they left for college, the last time they saw her alive._

_The look on Dad’s face as he told them his plans for the Jaeger._

The memories came faster, the last rush of stray thoughts.

_Axel grease and cigarette smoke, gosh my head hurts and how did that get there, rain hitting the window, smoke and ash, what’s wrong with Dad, the kaiju’s skeleton laying on the beach—_

The twins gasped simultaneously.

They were in the Drift now, a part of it and a part of each other.

“Neural handshake strong and holding,” Tendo called.

Matthew raised his hand, the dominant twin on the dominant side. “Right hemisphere ready.”

Two thousand tons of metal whirred to life, the reactor thrumming and the right hand of the Jaeger raising as it mirrored its pilot.

“Left hemisphere linked and ready.”

The Jaeger’s left arm raised at Marlowe’s command. Its left fist pressed into its hand, settling into the ready position.

“ _Nova Centurion_ ready to deploy.”


	2. To Fight Monsters, We Created Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warning: Kaiju vs. Jaeger Fight Scene/Violence
> 
> Series Warnings: 18+, Language, Angst, Fluff, Smut, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Blood/Injury, PTSD, Major Character Death

“You ready, Buck? It’s time.”

Of course Bucky was ready. He was always ready.

That was the problem.

He stood and followed Steve out of the room they shared and down the corridor, tugging at his new uniform. He’d been dressed and ready for over an hour, just sitting and observing the chaos around him.

They were a strange bunch, Steve’s friends. Very different from what he was used to. Always quick with a smile or a joke, no sense of order whatsoever.

He remembered being like that once.

They were nice enough to him for the most part, if maybe a little hesitant. Not scared—no, not them—but untrusting. Bucky understood, of course. He’d tried to kill most of them at least once.

In the weapons room, Bucky armed himself without being told while Steve grabbed his shield. Weapons weren’t allowed in the Tower, a rule which Bucky did not agree with and one that he’d broke his very first night. A knife in his boots and another concealed in a holster at the small of his back, several hidden in his room—they could take his guns, but they’d never take his knives.

Steve had no idea, of course, that punk had always been pretty easy to fool. He suspected that Natalia—or _Natasha_ , as she now called herself—knew, but if she did, she didn’t let on. She understood. He remembered her from the Red Room, and one lesson that place had taught them well was to always be prepared for a fight.

Sam told him he needed to find a way to switch off. Bucky never laughed, but he did snort cynically at that. Hydra had broken his “off” switch a long time ago. They’d destroyed that charming man with the easy smile and the mischievous glint in his eye, and turned him into a weapon. A tool to be used to sow pain and death, and while he wasn’t the Soldier anymore, he also wasn’t the man Steve had known anymore. 

Bucky took his place in the Quinjet next to Steve. Always on his right, Steve’s silent shadow.

“All right, everybody in?” Clint called from the cockpit. “Wheels up.”

“What do we know so far, Bruce?” Steve asked.

“It’s a level II Kaiju, just left the Breach a few hours ago, headed towards Sector Seven—Seattle. Military’s on scene. They’ve set up a blockade on the Miracle Mile, and Rhodey’s coordinating air support from the coast.”

“God, I hope this turns out better than the last one,” Clint muttered.

“It will. We’re prepared this time, and we’ve got a solid plan with more backup than last time,” Steve said.

Tony grumbled under his breath, something that sounded suspiciously like “star spangled man with a plan,” as he fiddled with the screen in front of him. Bucky scowled at him, but Steve continued, undaunted.

“Stark and Rhodey will scan and analyze the kaiju for weaknesses, and the Quinjets will provide covering fire. The city’s already being evacuated, if the kaiju crosses the Miracle Mile the jets will peel of and we’ll take the evac and crowd control.”

Bucky shivered inwardly. Eight weeks ago the kaiju had broken past the Miracle Mile at Sydney. Despite the Avenger’s best efforts, a third of the city had been destroyed and thousands had died.

Crowd control. Yeah, right.

The kaiju. Great sea monsters of legend, the stuff of nightmares and horror stories. Every time he’d gone on ice, Bucky had woken to a world that had changed—maybe just a little, maybe a lot, but this was the craziest thing he’d ever seen.

It was also something he couldn’t fight. He wasn’t a killer anymore, he was an Avenger. He fought for the people who couldn’t, placing himself between the little guy and the monster, just as he had all those years ago. Except this monster was just too big.

They got their first look at this one just as the kaiju surfaced in the Salish Sea, right before it emptied into Puget Sound. They were still several miles offshore, but everyone was unnerved that they hadn’t spotted it before.

“Thermal’s picking up nothin’ on this guy,” Tony complained. “Banner, let’s try switching to infrared.”

A roll of the shoulders and it submerged.

“Oops, there he goes again.”

“He’s not gonna surface again ‘til he’s closer to the city.”

“How do you know? Are you a kaiju expert now?”

“C’mon, man.”

The constant banter. Bucky stood quietly at the window and watched it all. He was thinking about the kaiju, observing and evaluating it as a predator. The beasts were clearly evolving—this was the largest one yet, and it’s physiology was remarkably different.

It surfaced again.

“There he is.”

“Still headed towards the city?”

“Yep.”

Then it surfaced again.

“Woah!”

“I’ve never seen them surface this much, but it’s still right on track, headed straight for Seattle.”

Bucky looked from the ripples on the water to the lights of the city ahead. Then he turned to the left, looking at the soft glow off to the north. Something was off.

“It’s not,” he said quietly.

All heads swiveled towards him.

“Iceman, you wanna weigh in here?” Tony asked with a bemused expression.

Bucky ignored him. “It’s a classic feigning maneuver. It doesn’t need to surface that much, it just wants us to think that’s where it’s headed. It knows we’re here.”

“What’re you talking about? Where else would it be headed?”

Bucky pointed to the north. “Vancouver.”

Steve stared at him for a long moment, and then spoke in his mic. “Rhodey, can we get some assets to peel of and form a blockade across the Haro Strait? There’s a chance that it may try for Vancouver.”

Rhodey called on over the comms.

_“Steve, are you sure? The last sighting showed it heading for—”_

_“Kaiju sighted! Kaiju sighted! All units converge north!”_

Garbled radio chatter exploded as the kaiju reared to its full height. Sure enough, it had turned and was now less than a mile from the San Juan Islands.

It was huge. Long, sinister claws curved to deadly points as it twisted, snapping at the jets that flew overhead. Its tail thrashed, working the water into a frenzy as the aircraft opened fire.

Bucky scrambled back into his seat, strapping in as the Quinjet tilted sickeningly on its axis. Out of the port side window he caught a glimpse of the monster as the second Quinjet fired, aiming for the vulnerable spot beneath the chin. Another lurch as Clint dodged a swipe had him gripping the seats edge with white knuckles.

_“Clint, keep your distance!”_

“I’m trying—this thing’s fast!”

A deafening roar. Rhodey had managed to hit one of hit’s eyes, but that only enraged the beast further.

The sky was a haze of smoke and fire around the kaiju, aircraft swooping in and peeling off in coordinated attacks. The radio chatter was just as chaotic—they were slowing the kaiju, but they were a long way from stopping it.

Clint suddenly sat up as he spotted something new on the radar.

“Tony, Rhodey, heads up—you’ve got a bogey headed your way at six o-clock!”

Tony sputtered. “Wait—is that my six o’clock, or you’re six o’clock?”

Bucky swiveled in his seat, spotting the object on the horizon. It was a giant metal robot—a crude imitation of the Iron Man suit, being hoisted by three Chinook helicopters.

The radio burst into a frenzy of noise as the military warned the intruders that they were entering restricted airspace, ordering them to stand down.

Clint hollered into the mic. “Guys, they’re not stopping—it’s headed straight for you!”

“What the hell is that thing?!” Rhodey yelled.

Suddenly, the tension cables holding the robot released, dropping their payload into the sea. It fell, slamming into the water in a crouched position. Slowly, it rose to its feet, water cascading down from its impressive height as it turned unmistakably towards the kaiju.

_“Unidentified, uh…vehicle. Stand down or else you’ll be fired upon!”_

The kaiju roared, ignoring the swarming aircraft in favor of this new foe.

The robot visibly bristled, plates shifting as it started to walk towards the monster.

“Uh, guys—I think it’s here to help,” Tony said as he flew past the machine.

It was picking up speed now. Water churned around it’s knees as the kaiju reared back, and it lowered its shoulder just before striking the beast dead center.

The impact was audible. The robot swung a fist down, catching the kaiju across the muzzle before it could recover. The outraged roar shook the Quinjet, and Bucky felt it all the way to his bones.

He stared, wide eyed as the two titans fought. He wasn’t the only one. The radio had gone silent, everyone watching the battle in stunned silence.

Claws ripped at metal, leaving deep gouges in the chest plate. The robot swung again, catching the kaiju with a vicious uppercut as it staggered, trying to keep its feet.

The two were evenly matched. The fight wore on, every eye turned towards the two opponents as the defenders watched with bated breath. Finally, the machine side-stepped the charging kaiju, slipping behind it and wrapping its arm around the beast’s throat.

A visible whir of the arm’s actuators, and the kaiju’s head twisted sharply to the left, its neck breaking with an audible snap.

Comms erupted into cheers.

_“Kaiju down! Kaiju down!”_

Now the Air Force turned their sights on the unknown champion. The robot stood tall, its arms hanging by its side as the power core in the center of its chest powered down. It remained motionless.

“There’s a hatch popping on the port side,” Clint called from the cockpit. “Rhodey, there’s people in that thing—tell the Air Force to stand down.”

Bucky watched, crowded at the window with the rest of them as two figures emerged with their hands partially raised, palms out. Simultaneously, they slowly reached up and removed their helmets.

Clint swung down closer, opened the cargo hatch, and Bucky got a better look at the newcomers. A man and a woman, both of similar height with the exact same shade of jet black hair. They moved together, mirroring each other’s gestures, the effect making them seem like carbon copies.

Twins.

“C’mon, Rhodes, let’s go say hello.”

Tony landed nimbly on the shoulder of the great machine. Bucky couldn’t hear anything over the whine of the Quinjet’s engines, but he could see the foursome talking and shaking hands. Rhodey nodded a lot, but Tony gestured wildly, obviously very excited about the giant robot.

Finally, he clapped the male on the shoulder and took off, Rhodey at his heels.

Clint craned back from the pilot’s seat as they landed in the back of the jet. “What was that all about? Who are they?”

“Change of plans, boys and girls, we’re headed to Anchorage.”

***

Marlowe followed her brother back through the Conn Pod’s hatch. Far below, the Navy had moved in, encircling the fallen kaiju and preparing to drag it out to sea.

She shut the hatch, spinning the wheel and dogging it down tightly. Both twins reached up and pushed a sweaty lock of hair back simultaneously, and then burst into laughter when they realized what they were doing. It was Drift residue, a lingering after-effect that tied the pair even closer than usual.

Marlowe fell into her brothers arms, both of them still sporting tired grins. The fight had been long, and it had worn them out more than they’d expected, but they’d _done_ it.

They’d killed their first kaiju.

_They’d be so proud._

Matthew tightened his grip, smiling down at his twin.

_I know they are. Did you see them there? In the Drift?_

_Of course I did…I was in your head. You okay, Mattie?_

_Yeah. You?_

_I’m good. Tired, but good. I can’t believe they’re coming with us to the Dome. Imagine what we could do with Stark on board._

Matthew laughed, and brushed his cheek against her hair affectionately.

_Already planning some upgrades, are we? Already looking to the next fight?_

_We’re doing it, Matthew. We’re gonna beat them._

_I know._

Together, they finished powering down _Nova Centurion_. They’d still have to link back up to get the Jaeger back in the bay, a laborious process without Tendo at the controls, but breaking the Drift had been necessary to avoid being blown out of the sky.

Marlowe was admittedly a little awe-struck. Tony Stark had been positively salivating over the Jaeger, but she understood— _Nova_ was quite impressive. Both he and Colonel Rhodes wanted to see the Shatterdome, meet the team and pool their resources.

They’d won today, but the kaiju had taken its toll on the Jaeger. Repairs had to be made, and hopefully, with Stark’s help, a few upgrades as well. The clock was ticking, however. Eight short weeks—that’s all they would have until the next attack, if the trends held. 

Marlowe sank down against the bulkhead next to her bother, watching the coastline fly by on the viewscreen. Matthew’s eyes were already closed, and he was snoring softly. She smiled and leaned against him. Better get some shut-eye while they could, because it was going to get busy once they arrived back home with the Avengers in tow.

The creak of the hoist cables and the drone of the helicopters melted into the gentle sway of the Jaeger, and she felt her eyes grow heavy. The last thing she saw before sleep claimed her was the Drift-memory of her mother and father, smiling proudly at her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Your comments and kudos are appreciated :)  
> This series will update every Thursday
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr @constantwriter85


End file.
